BEIJING, January 2 (Xinhuanet) -- The Rose Parade is an integral part of "America's New Year Celebration" each year. It's held in Pasadena, California, and features floral floats, marching bands, equestrians and, of course, the Rose Bowl college football game on New Year’s Day. It's produced by the non-profit Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association.
If you want something all-American, just check out "Soaring Stories," an entry by the California Polytechnic University for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade, set for New Year's Day.
The students are from two Cal Poly campuses, located some 250 miles apart -- Pamona and San Luis Obispo, both in California -- and the float is the essence of the word "homegrown".
"The float has over 30,000 roses and Gerbera Daisies from California. And this will be our fourth year certified as a California-grown float, so that's kind of emphasizing how both universities have backgrounds in agriculture. We're supporting our local farmers and soaring most of our products from the state," says Amanda Lee from Cal Poly University.
But this parade isn't just a stateside thing.
Ike "Mike" Matthiessen, who has been elected 2016 Pasadena Tournament of Roses president, said that while the bulk of parade-telecast viewers are from the east coast of the United States, an additional 25 million viewers will watch from overseas -- and that figure is potentially more, because international viewer ratings are difficult to compute.
More certainly, however, thousands of non-American visitors flock to the parade each year.
"I could tell you stories about how people in other countries know where Pasadena is just because of the Rose Parade. And that's something very special to them. They say, 'I know Pasadena. You're the parade people. I want to see that parade someday'," says Ike "Mike" Matthiessen, at Tournament Roses.
And visitors, as well as parade viewers from China, may see a bit of their own history in "A Bright Future".
"This design was inspired by Chinese decorative arts and, specifically, Han Dynasty arts and crafts. The dragon and the phoenix, of course, in Chinese culture, are a very important pairing. So, we wanted to make sure that while the primary focus of the float is the phoenix, we also represented the dragon in some way," says Charles Meier, from Paradiso Parade Floats.
Meier also has a second entry, a whimsical, animated hippo he and his crew built for the Zappos.com shoe retailer.
(Source: CNTV.com)
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